​Systematic Success for Leaders and Their People

"The problems organizations face today are far more vexing than the problems they had to address... globalization, intense competitiveness, galloping technology, change/change/change." ​From the introduction to Maslow on Management by Warren Bennis, Founder of the Leadership Institute and Professor at USC Marshall School of Business

Leading an Organization through Crises and Change

​ECRIT emphasizes that one crucial role for Leaders is Leadership through Crises and Change. It is decidedly better to learn and prepare for crises ahead of time than to flounder when the crisis hits the organization. To master Leadership of Crises, one must first gain mastery of Organizational Change.

Not every Organizational Change is a good one despite the intentions, and one must be wise and strategic to choose good changes before times inevitably bring a bad change. Leaders must learn how to guide organizations successfully through change or with a change. Leaders must also understand that any fundamental change, regardless of how positive or negative it may seem, will cause stress that can affect employees and the organization itself. Furthermore, Leaders need to understand how unmanaged and unmitigated stress can damage their organization and the effectiveness of their leadership as disrespect and mutiny ensue.

The fact remains that every organization, whether it is a business, non-profit, or government institution, must adapt in time. Adaptation can be a stressful change, particularly when it is revolutionary in scope.

Visionary LeadershipVisionary Leaders see further ahead, and they want their group to rise up to a certain level of success that they can see in the distance. In many ways, Visionary Leadership is like the team leader of a mountain climbing expedition. In their first stage for success, they create new visions of growth or use visions created by other people. They then set new goals for their people. The next challenging stage for success regards their engagement of their people. People may easily see the vision, but these Visionary Leaders must also show the path to a new and/or better way. They must effectively communicate, inspire, and motivate. Their accomplishments in the first stage can only be started if their people value the vision, develop motivation, and actively contribute with constructive mastery for new growth and new success.

The problem for people who have followed their leader is that they often focus on the goal instead of learning success itself. A group of people who achieve but don't learn about success may not be ready for exploration or transformation. A problem for leaders is that these people cannot sustain the success that they either developed or witnessed. All too often, both the children of welfare and the children of wealthy parents squander their resources and resources of the community.

Exploratory LeadershipExploratory leaders seek to lead people to an Exploratory Venture that is difficult for anyone to see clearly. The proposed destination, quest, business, non-profit, scientific experiment, invention, or innovation could bring the greatest profit or good. However, whether the venture is based upon an ultimate goal that essentially involves imagination, creativity, and/or discovery, the ultimate goal is so far beyond in distance or knowledge, methods, obstacles, projections, etc. that many uncertainties exist until the end. Thus, Exploratory Leaders and their people need a certain amount of growth in faith, intimate teamwork, and new mastery beyond what they learned and developed during a period of Visionary Leadership.

Typically, the goals of an Exploratory Venture are ones that no one or only someone has accomplished. This automatically turns off people who only contributed under Visionary Leadership because they could easily look at the mountain to see some stages and Visions fairly clearly. Without mastering success, they are afraid of what they cannot see and regress to the errors of people who think negatively that an endeavor is too impractical and/or unrealistic regardless of its need.

Exploratory Leaders are closer to their people as a captain is to the crew of a ship that is going to explore uncharted waters. The destination, the route, and the outcomes may be vague to both a Exploratory Leader and their crew, but the leader must steer carefully and engage his people more carefully lest they mutiny. In addition to effectively communicating, inspiring, and motivating, they must manage moments of anxiety among their crew. However, their accomplishments can only be started if their people value the vision, maintain motivation, and keep contributing with constructive mastery to thrive. An Exploratory Leader can hire mercenaries to do what his people cannot, and a leader can take a number of his people for the ride, but a leader cannot fit everyone in when people become too passive, contentious, or resistant. Moreover, as new mercenaries and experts join, tensions can mount between the original group and the new group.

Transformative LeadershipExploratory Ventures tend to have many types of complexity, Transformative Leaders must master the more difficult complex situations that become complicated. Visionary Leaders and Exploratory Leaders must turn into Transformative Leaders in a crisis to lead their people to transform their roles and perhaps personalities to survive or profit from a threat.

The amount of psychological stress is highest for both Transformative Leaders and their people. Thus, higher levels of individual and social psychological skills are both necessary. During times of stress, many people value things the wrong way and alter their previously constructive values and relationships dramatically. Under such conditions, frantic people are prone to just jump overboard irrationally or to seemingly save themselves instead of working together to save the ship.

During a serious crisis (e.g. a ship is damaged), the best Transformative Leaders manage stresses and motivate both themselves and their people for the necessary changes that must be learned, made, and sustained. They create a positive perspective encouraging the adoption of new roles, new methods, and new goals while managing serious concerns.

“I suddenly realized that [John Maynard] Keynes and all the brilliant economic students in the room were interested in the behavior of commodities while I was interested in the behavior of people.”Peter Drucker, the Austrian-American founder of modern management, speaking about his epiphany in Cambridge

Improving the Mind for Optimizing Management

Peter Drucker ushered in a new era of business management with his realization; many economists and business leaders were too focused upon impersonal commodities instead of the behavior of leaders and employees. Drucker also spent his time studying business management internationally. In the early 1970s, Drucker wrote earnestly about various aspects of Japanese management that helped propel Japanese businesses. Indeed, the Japanese corporations continued to develop well into the 1980s at which point they soared.

As the founding figure of formal university research of success among psychologists, Abraham Maslow responded to Peter Drucker's earlier books and ideas with a crucial critique in 1962 known as Maslow on Management. Maslow noted that Drucker was largely correct about his observations despite his lack of education and research in psychology. However, Maslow also knew that behind behavior, a person has deeper thoughts that Drucker and business leaders couldn't or didn't see. Throughout his book, Maslow called for more research, and at the end of his book, Maslow proposed for corporations to hire a psychologist to serve as a particular vice president who would help resolve psychological issues while optimizing success and well-being.

Organizational Psychologists are a partial outgrowth of Maslow's recommendation, but they do not complete what Maslow realized and commended. The mind is so complex and people's stresses are so numerous that other psychologists and forms of psychology are necessary. Organizational Psychologists are not trained in Clinical Psychology. Their avoidance of deeper thoughts or other aspects of an individual are indicators that they must be complemented by other experts.

ECRIT Assists the Leaders

​ECRIT supports leaders by in particular providing them and/or their people with deep knowledge and assistance about leadership psychology, personal psychology, and interpersonal psychology through coaching, training, or consulting.

"Neuroeconomics, judgment, and decision making... are all directed at understanding how and why people make judgments and decisions that have economic consequences... The origins of judgments, decisions, and all other economic behavior can be found in the brain... However, people are notoriously poor at processing numbers, and even experts exhibit biases and fallacies in numerical judgments and decisions." Psychology Professor Valerie Reyna of Cornell University, Neuroeconomics, Judgment, and Decision Making